Censored NewsTUCSON --(June 29, 2011) At around 2 p.m. today, community members burst uninvited into the Tucson offices of private security firm G4S and declared in no uncertain terms their opposition to the company’s profiteering at the expense of immigrant communities in Tucson, across the nation and throughout the world. Incensed by G4S’ role in promoting the criminalization of immigrants and the expansion of the private prison industry, the protestors entered the G4S office complex, delivered a letter to company representatives and unfurled a banner reading “G4S: Prison profiteering destroys communities.”

Today’s action, which was organized autonomously by Tucson community members, was carried out under the banner of Direct Action for Freedom of Movement. Although the protesters were never asked to leave the building, and were there only 10 minutes, the Tucson Police cited 16 individuals for criminal trespassing.

G4S is the world’s largest security company and has public contracts to transport, detain and imprison immigrants throughout the world. The company is infamous for the mistreatment of individuals in its custody, with the most atrocious examples including the senseless deaths of two inmates in 2010. Since 2006, G4S has provided transportation for Customs and Border Protection and, in 2010 alone, secured over 125 million dollars in contracts from the Department of Homeland Security.

G4S not only reaps the profits of border enforcement, they also shape public policy to criminalize immigrants and ensure a steady stream of people to fill their buses and jails. G4S subsidiary Wackenhut is a member of the American Legislative Exchange Council, the organization responsible for drafting the model legislation that became SB1070 and similar laws in Utah, Georgia, Indiana and Alabama.

Protest participant Carly Rexroad explained the goals of today’s action: “G4S is the world’s largest private security firm, reaping millions in profit from imprisoning immigrants and tearing families apart. By targeting G4S we hope to help illuminate the connections between prison profiteering and the proliferation of state legislation that criminalizes immigrants and funnels them into the jails and detention facilities of the very companies who wrote and lobbied for that legislation. As long as this pattern continues, G4S can expect to see actions like today’s multiply and escalate.”

Community member Matthew Johnson described the ways in which profiteering destroys communities: “The grotesque face of border militarization is evident in every SBInet surveillance tower now left defunct to litter the desert, every mile of border wall that scars the landscape, and every G4S-operated bus that deports hundreds of people each day or drives them to Tucson to be fed directly into the prison industry through the expedited proceedings of Operation Streamline. Every immigrant transported by G4S for deportation or incarceration represents a family whose loved one is missing, locked in a cage or unceremoniously dumped over the southern border.”

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

"We also found details of Jeff Wilson, a former DPS officer and member of a Navajo tribe, planning on suing the department for racial discrimination charges. Amongst the civil rights violations occurring in AZDPS, Sgt. Jeff Eavenson and others were illegally issuing tickets to Navajos in AZ state court jurisdiction instead of tribal courts. When Jeff Wilson brought these charges up to the department, they punished him and pushed him out of the police force. We welcome Wilson's attempts to expose his racist administrators and so we won't be releasing his info."
Read more:http://censored-news.blogspot.com/2011/06/hackers-slam-arizona-cops-again-with.html
More at Censored News Homepage: Hacked data exposes Tucson school safety officer who reported ethnic studies to Arizona Attorney General:http://www.bsnorrrell.blogspot.com/

Looks like last week's "Chinga La Migra" strike against the Arizona Border Police was only part one—the sequel's landed today, and this time it's personal. Like, really personal: Anonymous is claiming social security numbers, girlfriend pics, and more.

The dumps contents—if they're authentic—will be a massive slap not only to the integrity of Arizona's state security, but the lives of its police force. Sayeth Anonymous, in "Chinga La Migra Communique Dos":

We also hit the AZDPS spokesperson Stephen Harrison who been bragging to the news about how they are upgrading their security and how they will catch the evil hackers who exposed them. Clearly not secure enough, because we owned his personal hotmail, facebook and match.com accounts and dumped all his personal details for the world to see. The same fate will meet anyone else who tries to paint us as terrorists in an Orwellian attempt to pass more pro-censorship or racial-profiling police state laws.

Like the first AZ attack, this one's equally politically motivated, angled against policies Anonymous considers racist and wrong. So what's the AntiSec endgame in Arizona? Anonymous says it'll continue to targetPolice officers who lock people up for decades, who get away with brutality and torture, who discriminate against people of color, who make and break their own laws as they see fit. We are making sure they experience just a taste of the same kind of violence and terror they dish out on an every day basis. Our advice to you is to quit while you still can and turn on your commanding officers before you end up in our cross hairs next, because we're not stopping until every prisoner is freed and every prison is burned to the ground.

Again, we can't authenticate the dump's contents at the moment, but if true, Anonymous is going to have some serious law enforcement ire pointed in its direction. [AnonymousIRC]
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*** CHINGA LA MIGRA COMMUNIQUE DOS *** 6/29/2011 *** HACKERS WITHOUT BORDERS ***

“Although they have not all been listed, we believe the groups discussed pose a significant domestic terrorist treat at this time,” the report states.

In its bizarre categories of anarchists, the Missouri watch list states, “direct action radical sub-groups not all believe in violence.” Feminists, peace activists and race equality activists are listed as anarchists in the Anarchist Punk category.

Christian vegetarians are apparently something to be feared, at least by Missouri officials, who fail to explain how being a vegetarian deserves a mention on a police watch list.

Here’s what Missouri officials say:

“Christian anarchists have opposed war and other ‘Statist’ aggression through nonviolent tax resistance. Many Christian Anarchists were vegetarian or vegan.”

The watch list includes a variety of labor union organizations, Black Bloc and eco-anarchist groups, without naming any personal names.

Although Copwatch is most often considered a human rights organization and Infoshop, an online news source, Missouri officials, however, place both on the anarchists watch list, as domestic threats:

Copwatch is a network of United States volunteer organizations that "police the police". Copwatch groups usually engage in monitoring of the police, videotaping police activity, educating the public about police misconduct, and advocating for more accountable law enforcement practices.

The main function of most Copwatch groups is monitoring police activity. "Copwatchers" go out on foot or driving patrols in their communities and videotape interactions between the police and civilians. Some groups also patrol at protests and demonstrations to ensure that the rights of protesters are not violated by police officers. Copwatch organizations generally abide by a policy of non-interventions with the police, although this may not be true for all groups. The anarchist ran Infoshop News published the new “Copwatch 101” booklet found at the following address http://news.infoshop.org/article.php?story=04/04/06/6676838

Run for the 1950s bomb shelter: Missouri officials say the Anti-Racist Action Network is not only anarchist, but are “sometime seen to be ‘Red’ or Communist.”

Anti-Racist Action Network (ARA) is a decentralized network of anti-fascist and Anti-Racist Activists. ARA activists organize actions to disrupt neo-nazi and white supremacist groups and help to organize resistance mainly to fascist and racist ideologies. ARA groups also oppose sexism, homophobia, heterosexism, anti-semitism, and anti-abortion activists. They are sometimes seen to be "Red" or Communist, particularly by detractors, however; the network includes a large number of anarchists.

ARA started in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1987. Since then it has expanded to different communities, countries and continents. Members of Love and Rage, a revolutionary anarchist organization played a major role in building ARA groups and the ARA Network in the 1990s. They are sometimes associated with the Skinhead and Punk subcultures and work with organizations such as Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice (SHARP).

Environmentalists, check your activist cards to make sure you’re in the right category:

Green Anarchism puts an emphasis on environmental issues. Some green anarchists can be described as Anarcho-Primitivists and sometimes Anti-Civilization Anarchists, though not all Green Anarchists are Primitivists.

Some anarcho-punks are “straight edge”, claiming that alcohol, tobacco, drugs and promiscuity are instruments of oppression and are self-destructive because they cloud the mind and wear down a person's resistance to other types of oppression. Some crust punks also condemn the waste of land, water and resources necessary to grow crops to make alcohol, tobacco and drugs, forfeiting the potential to grow and manufacture food. Some may be straight edge for religious reasons, such as in the case of Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, or Hare Krishna anarcho-punks.

Anarcho-punks universally believe in direct action, although the way in which this manifests itself varies greatly. Despite their differences in strategy, anarcho-punks often co-operate with each other. Many anarcho-punks are pacifists and therefore believe in using non-violent means of achieving their aims. These include peaceful protest, refusal to work, squatting, economic sabotage, dumpster diving, graffiti, culture jamming, ecotage, freeganism, boycotting, civil disobedience, hacktivism and subvertising. Some anarcho-punks believe that violence or property damage is an acceptable way of achieving social change. This manifests itself as rioting, vandalism, wire cutting, assault, hunt sabotage, participation in Animal Liberation Front- or Earth Liberation Front-style activities, and in extreme cases, bombings. Many anarchists dispute the applicability of the term "violence" to describe destruction of property.

Saturday, June 25, 2011

On behalf of all Peoples (Indians/Tribal Members) of all the Nations (the Tribes now of the United States) I object to and oppose the entire document as being unconstitutional in its format, and do vehemently object to the centuries of breeched trusts and non compliance of the rules, regulations and promises included within each of the treaties made between each Nation (Tribe) and the United States, that either have not been dealt with or have been ignored even when presented and filed with the federal court of the United States, therefore, believe this action, Cobell vs Salazar, cannot legally be accepted without first addressing these international issues.

In the event this objection is ignored (as is recounted historically) I then wish that the following objections be heard and taken into account.

Objection II Attorney’s Fees

All fees, costs and expenses for Class Counsel and Class Representatives including but not limited to any and all other fees and costs arising from the continued findings and filings in relation to this case should be paid from a fund supplied and paid into by an entity of the Federal Government of the United States and separated from funds allocated to IIM Accounts in this “3.4 Billion Dollar Trust Settlement”. The funds break down into a drop in the bucket, a one-time payment of $1,000. per Historical Class account, in comparison to a century of gross breeches of trust by the United States against the Peoples (Indians) of the Nations (Tribes) with whom treaties were made, and that the 3.4 billion dollars be paid in its entirety to each IIM Account, as it is a national insult that the already below poverty level Peoples (Indians) should bear the costs for the recovery of the aforementioned breeched trusts while, again, the lawyers, council and representatives are paid two hundred twenty-three million dollars, knowing that $1000.00-2500.00 cannot possibly help any family/person who has endured a lifetime of poverty.

OBJECTION III Releases

This one time settlement agreement (3.4 billion dollars resulting in an actual payment of only $1000.00 to each IIM (Historical Class) account, and up to 223 million dollars to the attorneys and others) SHOULD NOT “release, waive, and forever discharge the United States, any department, agency or establishment, and any officers, employees or successors of the United States (defendants), as well as any contractor, including any Tribal contractor (collectively the “releasees”) from obligation to perform a historical accounting and forever be barred and precluded from prosecuting any and all claims and/or causes of action for any and all historical accounting claims, however characterized whether under common law, at equity or by statute”. The above mentioned monies in no way constitute a settlement of this magnitude while the constitutionality of the settlement is questionable and should not be accepted without the United States first acknowledging and enforcing each and every one of the treaties previously made between each of the Nations (Tribes) and itself.

OBJECTION IV Land Consolidation

“Fractionated Lands” is a Tribal issue and should does not have any context or relevance to this settlement, Cobell vs Salazar. Tribal lands have been greatly diminished through the aforementioned breeched trusts and the failure of the United States to uphold the current treaties.

Mary Rose Wilcox, despite your history of supporting economic projects that have uprooted working class and poor people from their land and lives (Bank One Ballpark), you continue to posit yourself as some champion of immigrant and worker rights. You may believe your presence at the immigrant marches and rallies, your purported solidarity with the down trodden and oppressed, makes you a rare breed in Maricopa County and perhaps this gains you some credibility in the movement.

“An injury to one is an injury to all,” is the essence of solidarity in action. For we are pro-migrant, and in our support of immigrants who have been dispossessed by predatory American trade policies, we recognize that it is those trade policies, in particular NAFTA, that are the enemy of all workers in North America. What, then, is solidarity when you support all of these conditions that line the pockets of corporations, while keeping indigenous people, workers, and immigrants down?

It is your involvement in the Arizona-Mexico Commission that signals your complicity with the exploitation caused by neo-liberal trade that continues to impact people’s lives in Mexico by dispossessing them and keeping wages in the toilet, forcing the poorest to migrate for survival. This is not solidarity; it is rank political opportunism. But hypocrisy is like breathing to politicians. Another of the consequences of increased trade between Arizona and Mexico are the proposed freeways that would devastate the land and air, in particular the proposed Loop 202 freeway extension through the Gila River Indian Community (Akimel O’odham land). Surely, you’re aware that the tribe has opposed the freeway extension, as both District 6 in Gila River, and the tribe as a whole has previously opposed any new freeway, so it should be no surprise that there continues to be opposition.

You and your staff should take plenty of time to read and understand why O’odham people are fighting for their community health and their cultural survival through the defense of their sacred mountain, and why others are supporting this fight. Below is a link to an information resource for freeway opposition. We do not speak for these groups, nor do we act on anyone’s behalf but our own. We are simply -People Against Freeways-

It’s clear that the Phoenix metro area does not need a new freeway. If anything, we need less freeways. As mile after mile of asphalt and concrete is poured, set, and dried, the thermometer continues to rise. We can all feel the heat these days.

Editor’s Note: The second of two articles on the Caravan for Peace with Justice and Dignity that culminated in Ciudad Juarez and El Paso last weekend.

El Grito de El Paso (The Cry of El Paso)

Running for Albuquerque's murdered women

By Frontera NorteSur
On Memorial Day, Albuquerque resident Michael Brown embarked on a run of more than 260-miles to the US-Mexico border.

The long-distance runner began his marathon at the spot where the bodies of 11 murdered women were found on Albuquerque’s West Mesa back in February 2009. Headed south, the US Navy veteran stopped at a grave site to honor his fallen military brethren and then visited the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Park in Truth or Consequences, NM, a popular weekend getaway located about half-way between Albuquerque and El Paso.

In an interview with Frontera NorteSur, Brown said that a big purpose of his nearly two-week long trip was to raise awareness of youth violence as well as the failure of the juvenile justice system to deliver “real healing” and successfully reintegrate offenders back into the community. Brown’s concerns transcended national boundaries.

On Saturday, June 11, he stood with hundreds of other people in El Paso’s downtown plaza to take a stand against the violence flowing from the so-called drug war in neighboring Ciudad Juarez and beyond.

“That in fact does impact our families in New Mexico. Many of them cannot cross the border as easily to see their familia and vice-versa,” Brown said. “Everyone in southern New Mexico seems to know someone in Mexico that has been affected directly by the violence.”

Brown and many others were on hand to welcome members of the Caravan for Peace with Justice and Dignity that traveled through Mexico last week gathering victims’ testimonies and input for a citizen pact that demands an end to militarization of the drug war, a halt to criminal impunity, an emergency response to the youth crisis and a much greater dose of democracy.

Organized by Justice without Borders and other US groups, the El Paso event featured caravan organizer and Mexican poet Javier Sicilia and other speakers. In addition to the preliminary, six-point pact developed by Sicilia and other Mexican activists, the US groups agreed to three additional demands centered on this country’s relationship with Mexico.

The three points included justice and protection for violence victims, immediate protection and asylum for Mexican refugees and an end to the Merida

Initiative, the US-Mexico government agreement that provides US military hardware, training and intelligence to Mexican security forces widely accused of human rights abuses.

Ruben Garcia, director of the Annunciation House migrant shelter in El Paso, charged that Merida monies are being used to “suffocate the life of an entire country.”

From the podium, the names of local, regional and national US groups subscribing to the pact were read off to the crowd. The Border Network for Human Rights, Colonias Development Council, MECHA, Museo Urbano, and Miners without Borders were among the many adherents to the pact.

Defending Mexican refugees has emerged as a big issue in El Paso and other places. At the June 11 rally, El Paso immigration attorney Carlos Spector announced that Ciudad Juarez activist Cipriana Jurado’s petition for political asylum in the US was finally granted by a judge the previous day. The decision, Spector contended, represented an admission by the US government that the Mexican army is the “villain of the movie.”

A well-known labor, environmental and women’s rights activist, Jurado fled her home last year after helping file human rights complaints against the army and getting threats. A close associate of Jurado’s, Josefina Reyes, was murdered last year. Now a political exile, Jurado addressed the rally.

“We’re going to continue the struggle because we have that commitment,” Jurado said, running down the names of other Ciudad Juarez activists who have been murdered or forced to leave town like herself.

The former maquiladora worker then led the crowd in chants demanding the withdrawal of the Mexican army from Ciudad Juarez’s streets.

According to Spector, a committee of Mexicans-in-Exile will be unveiled in the coming days.

Like the caravan’s rallies in Ciudad Juarez and other Mexican cities, the El Paso event drew victims’ relatives with personal stories to share.

“Cesar Rico is Kidnapped.” Creel Asks for Justice,” read a pair of placards carried by a small group originally from the small mountain town of Creel, Chihuahua. Luz Rico, aunt of the kidnapped man, said the family still has no word of her nephew’s fate even after Mexican President Felipe Calderon was personally told of the case and the office of Chihuahua Governor Cesar Duarte likewise informed.

Since Cesar Rico’s November 2010 kidnapping, two members of the family of taxi drivers and car sellers have been murdered, according to Luz Rico and other relatives accompanying her. Irma Ramos, an in-law who was known for reporting suspicious activities to the Mexican army, was among the victims, they added.

“There is a lot of insecurity in Creel,” Rico said. “Kidnappings, death, all of that. It is very bad. They should pay attention to this town.” In 2008, Creel briefly made the news after 13 people-including an infant-were murdered in an attack on a party.

A once-quiet jumping-off point for the famed Copper Canyon tourist circuit, Creel and its environs have been selected by the Mexican government as the focal point for major tourist development.

Historically, the mountainous zone has been an important producer of marijuana and opium poppies. Clandestine air strips, drug shipment routes and illegal logging all add to the strategic value of the region.

To varying degrees, Creel, Ciudad Juarez, El Paso and Albuquerque all constitute distinct yet connected “plazas” in a hyper-charged, transnational economy of illicit products, fast money, corruption, violence and addiction. In this casino-like world of high stakes gamblers, unlimited riches and power are the elusive wins and premature death the more likely outcome.

For nearly a century, Mexican-produced smack has cultivated a heroin culture in New Mexico’s largest city. Typically, the problem is swept under the rug by polite society but a recent surge in addictions and overdose deaths of Albuquerque teens attending the city’s best public schools has generated a blast of media coverage.

A youth advocate, Michael Brown works in training and professional development for the New Mexico Forum for Youth in Community. As part of his job, the former navy man visits young people in a substance abuse treatment center. Recently, he encountered an 8-year-old girl and a 9-year-old boy who became addicted to heroin after finding the drug left out in the open by adults “responsible” for their care.

“It just completely broke my heart,” Brown said.

Albuquerque’s heroin dreams and nightmares are just one piece of a larger youth crisis that’s also readily event in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico and, indeed, across the globe.

Everywhere youth unemployment is rampant, and in the Duke City it’s common to find scores of young people applying for a low-paid job cleaning tables or flipping burgers. Violence connected to gang, dating and domestic situations are constants. Nobody has been arrested for the murders of the young women found on the West Mesa, and similar to the impunity shrouding the disappeared of Ciudad Juarez, others remain missing with no word of their whereabouts.

Earlier this month, a young man, was shot and killed in front of other teens at a house party where a fight with gang overtones shattered the night.

“All this percolates and really becomes an epidemic in our society,” Brown said. “We really want to talk about the fact that our young people are our future. We’re late.”

For the military veteran, the solutions to cross-border violence will come from below, from the grassroots, where people should be pushing politicians instead of the other way around. “We talk about military resolve. I think we need community resolve,” Brown asserted.

The Albuquerque activist’s prescriptions find a lot of common ground with the Caravan for Peace and Justice with Dignity and its citizen pact, which stresses collective action on violence, the youth crisis and the renewal of civil society.

In El Paso, caravan co-organizer Julian LeBaron of Chihuahua spoke about the emergence of a “new people” rising up to sow dignity, honor and pride.” And in the case of his own country, LeBaron said the time for change was urgent:

“Mexico today trembles from the threat of violence. As a people, we’ve accepted this as a way of life but violence is not a way of life, it is a way of death. Our children hide like animals and don’t experience the beauty and abundance of our land and our traditions. Many of our brothers and sisters are ashamed of being Mexicans, and many flee their own country out of fear. The rest of the world watches and waits like vultures hovering over the corpse of a legendary beast. This has to stop. It is time.”

--Kent Paterson
Frontera NorteSur: on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news
Center for Latin American and Border Studies
New Mexico State University
Las Cruces, New Mexico

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Censored News is published by censored journalist Brenda Norrell. A journalist for 27 years, Brenda lived on the Navajo Nation for 18 years, writing for Navajo Times, AP, USA Today, Lakota Times and other American Indian publications. After being censored and then terminated by Indian Country Today in 2006, she began the Censored Blog to document the most censored issues. She currently serves as human rights editor for the U.N. OBSERVER & International Report at the Hague and contributor to Sri Lanka Guardian, Narco News and CounterPunch. She was cohost of the 5-month Longest Walk Talk Radio across America, with Earthcycles Producer Govinda Dalton in 2008: www.earthcycles.net/COPYRIGHTS All material is copyrighted by the author or photographer. Please contact each contributor for reprint permission. brendanorrell@gmail.comAudios may not be sold or used for commercial purposes.

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